Watch Duncan McCargo Speak on “Populist Plutocrats” at Harvard Law School

September 28, 2017 by Ross Yelsey

Duncan McCargo, Visiting Professor of Political Science at Columbia University and expert on Southeast Asian politics, participated in the “Populist Plutocrats: Lessons from Around the World” conference on September 23, 2017. The conference was sponsored by Harvard Law School and the Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and it was held at Harvard Law School. It focused on an important and dangerous political phenomenon: the “populist plutocrat.” The populist plutocrat is a leader who exploits the cultural and economic grievances of poorer, less-educated voters against traditional elites in order to achieve and retain power, but who, once in office, seem substantially or primarily interested in enriching him- or herself, along with a relatively small circle of family members, cronies, and allies.